Spokane's Fish Lake Trail

I’ve been biking on the Fish Lake Trail a few times this year and wanted to post some pictures. I’ve mentioned this trail in a previous post about rails to trails projects in the Spokane area which also includes a few pictures along Fish Lake Trail. This is a very enjoyable and accessible multiuse trail as it’s built on an abandoned stretch of Union Pacific track so the grade is very gentle, and includes some great views as well as interesting cuts and fills. I also like it as the trip is uphill from the parking lot so it’s an enjoyable downhill ride back to the car.

Train of auto carriers headed upgrade. This picture is taken from the trail which is visible in the lower-right, showing how close the trail is to active tracks.

Fish Lake Trail is sandwiched between two active BNSF lines so you are bound to see multiple trains. This is part of the BNSF mainline between Spokane and Pasco and this stretch is double-track territory. The Fish Lake trail starts literally below BNSF’s Latah Junction (MP 1481.6 on the BNSF Columbia River subdivision) and runs along the Hangman Creek valley and then up Marshall Canyon to UP Junction (MP 365.8 on the BNSF Spokane subdivision) where Union Pacific trains can switch from BNSF to their home tracks. See my Rail Trails in Spokane County Google layer map for the exact location and alignment of the trail.

The roadbed the trail is on was built in 1912 by the Oregon-Washington Railroad & Navigation Company (OWR&N), a subsidiary of Union Pacific, and opened to through traffic by 1914. This line was also used by Milwaukee Road through passenger trains as their mainline didn’t go through Spokane but instead passed about 25 miles to the south, so they used OWR&N tracks to access the city.

Detail of a 1950 USGS topo map  (Spokane SW Quadrangle, Wash. 1950. 1:24,000) showing all three lines running up Marshall Canyon. The middle line, which is the trail today, is labeled here as both Union Pacific and Milwaukee Road.

The OWR&N was this third railroad to build up Marshall Canyon. The Northern Pacific completed the first line in 1881. And the Spokane, Portland & Seattle (jointly owned by the Northern Pacific and Great Northern) built a line through Marshall Canyon in 1909. As the third railroad, OWR&N had a tough job squeezing in, and construction of their new line required the old Northern Pacific line to be moved a bit further east in a couple areas. This required extensive rock removal which the OWR&N contractor had to do carefully and slowly so as not to disturb traffic on the existing NP line.

The Burlington Northern (BN) merger in 1970 combined three of the four big railroads in Spokane: the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, and the Spokane, Portland & Seattle. With all the excess facilities and lines in the Spokane area, BN set about consolidating down to a single line through downtown Spokane and a new high bridge over Hangman Creek to the west of downtown. Union Pacific was encouraged to use this new BN bridge so that UP could abandon two Spokane River crossings. The UP line up Marshall Canyon was then abandoned as the two BN lines could handle the combined BN and UP traffic. Today the old NP line is used for eastbound trains and the old SP&S line is used for westbound trains as it has a lesser westbound ruling grade.

In this detail from a 1973 USGS topo map (Spokane SW Quadrangle, Wash. 1973. 1:24,000) you can see that the UP line now appears as abandoned and the other two lines are now labeled as Burlington Northern.

The Union Pacific approached the City of Spokane in 1990 about selling the right-of-way between the city and UP junction, and in time the city and the state were able to work out a deal. It took many years but eventually the old railroad grade was smoothed out and gradually paved in segments as funding could be secured. Today the paved section of trail is 9.4 miles long, and with luck (and funding) it will eventually be 10.2 miles long and reach all the way to Fish Lake. The trail ends today at UP Junction where the UP line breaks off and the two BNSF tracks merge (at Lakeside Junction) into a single track that follows the original NP line to Pasco. The last 0.8 mile stretch of the trail beyond UP Junction will be expensive as it will need to cross over two active rail lines, likely requiring one bridge and either a second bridge or an at-grade crossing. Where the trail ends at Fish Lake it connects with the existing Columbia Plateau State Park Trail which follows the abandoned SP&S roadbed for 130 miles from Fish Lake to Pasco.

Another detail from the same 1973 USGS topo map with the missing 0.8 mile trail segment highlighted in yellow between Queen Lucas Lake and Fish Lake.

The trail starts right under BNSF's Latah Junction, a wye junction built in 1973 at the west end of a new high bridge over Hangman Creek (also known as Latah Creek) as part of the Burlington Northern consolidation of lines in the Spokane area.

Looking north from the trail at the two BNSF lines west of Latah Junction. The one in the foreground connects leads to the old Spokane, Portland & Seattle line that heads up Marshall Canyon. In the background is a new line built in 1973 that will connect with the old Great Northern line about five miles down the track.

Another image showing the Fish Lake trailhead parking lot.

Use the trail anytime of day and you will see trains. Here we see a westbound (upgrade) unit coal train on the old SP&S line.

Here we see the trailing locomotives at the end of a westbound unit grain train.

A mixed train passing along a nice rock cut.

A tunnel-like structure was built here for the OW&RN line to pass under a track at Scribner.

This historic 547-foot long bridge, only partially visible here, was designed by noted Spokane engineer W. L. Malony. It is a parabolically arched concrete T-beam structure with varying span lengths, allowing it to carry Cheney-Spokane Road over all three railroad mainlines and some rail yard diverging tracks as well as Marshall Creek. This was the primary highway between Cheney and Spokane prior to I-90 being built. The bridge was completed in 1949 and added to the National Register for Historic Places in 1995 as an outstanding example of 1940s T-beam construction.

Another view of the Marshall Bridge from where the trail passes underneath.

As we near the end of the trail we pass by Queen Lucas Lake, here seen in spring when the water table is still high.

Here is the same view in mid-summer. The lake doesn't dry out completely but the open surface water (out of view to the left) is only about a quarter of the area compared to when the water is high.

And here we are at the end of the trail, where we see the lead locomotives on a train passing the signal at UP junction. I hope to see this fence gone and a paved trail continuing on to Fish Lake in my lifetime.